1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for providing a multimedia printing interface. In particular, the present invention relates to systems and methods for providing a print driver dialog interface that allows users to format multimedia data to generate a representation of multimedia data.
2. Description of the Background Art
Printers in modern systems today are not designed to generate multimedia documents. Currently, there is not any effective method for generating an easily readable representation of multimedia content in either paper or digital format. Several different techniques and tools are available for accessing and navigating multimedia information (e.g., existing multimedia players). However, none of these provide the user with the option of creating a multimedia document that the user can easily review and through which a user can gain access to multimedia content.
Printers in modern systems today are also not designed to facilitate interaction with multimedia content or with print content, in general. Standard printer dialog boxes provide users with some general formatting options in a print job, such as number of pages to print, number of copies to be made, and the like. However, printer drivers in modern operating systems are not designed to facilitate interactive information gathering. Since the print job can be redirected to another printer, or the printing protocol does not allow such interactive sessions, the operating system does not encourage interaction with the user.
Due to these limitations in printer interaction, the user cannot define more detailed printing preferences in standard printing. Additionally, the user cannot define any printing preferences at all regarding multimedia content, since such printing capabilities are not currently available. Thus, a user cannot use current print dialog boxes to select segments of multimedia content that are of interest for printing. Current print dialog boxes also do not permit a user to preview any multimedia content. Additionally, there is not any way for a user to search through a lengthy multimedia segment for particular features of interest. For example, a user cannot currently search through a news segment for content covering a particular topic, nor can a user search for specific faces or events in a news segment. Moreover, there is no way to define a printing format for selected segments of multimedia content, and there is no way to preview or modify printing formats directly through a print dialog box.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and methods for permitting user interaction with and control over generation of a multimedia representation that overcomes the limitations found in the prior art.